If you thought the PlayBook was dead, think again. A 4G variant has shown up on the CrackBerry forums, so it looks like the troubled RIM is getting ready to have another go with its ill-fated tablet.

The original PlayBook didn't have a 3G version, so you needed to tether it to your handset for a lot of the features to work. Adding 4G would leapfrog a lot of the old issues, but the question remains: will anyone buy it?

News broke of a new PlayBook back in January, though it was expected to be 3G rather than 4G. It's not known at the moment whether it's LTE, or HSPA+. It won't make much difference to us Brits though, as we're not expected to have active 4G networks in the UK for a while yet. Hence the collective shrug over the new iPad being 4G. In the pictures the SIM tray is clearly visible, and the device bears the legend "BlackBerry 4G PlayBook" down the side.

There are no concrete details on the other specs, such as a bumped up 1.5GHz processor, so we'll have to wait for an official announcement. But RIM is holding its annual get together for developers in May, so we might hear something then.

About the author

Joe has been writing about consumer tech for nearly seven years now, but his liking for all things shiny goes back to the Gameboy he received aged eight (and that he still plays on at family gatherings, much to the annoyance of his parents). His pride and joy is an Infocus projector, whose 80-inch picture elevates movie nights to a whole new level.
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